Blood Dreams

brought to life, Dani thought. The vision.

The smell of blood turned her stomach, the thick, acrid smoke burned her eyes, and what had been for so long a wispy, dreamlike memory was now jarring, throat-clogging reality. For just an instant she was paralyzed. It was all coming true.

Despite everything she had done, everything she had tried to do, despite all the warnings, once again it was all-

"Dani?" Hollis appeared at her side, seemingly out of the smoke, gun drawn, blue eyes sharp even squinted against the stench. "Where is it?"

"I-I can't. I mean, I don't think I can-"

"Dani, you're all we've got. You're all they've got. Do you understand that?"

Reaching desperately for strength she wasn't at all sure she had, Dani said, "If somebody had just listened to me when it mattered-"

"Stop looking back. There's no sense in it. Now is all that counts. Which way, Dani?"

Impossible as it was, Dani had to force herself to concentrate on the stench of blood she knew neither of the others could smell. A blood trail that was all they had to guide them. She nearly gagged, then pointed. "That way. Toward the back. But . . ."

"But what?"

"Down. Lower. There's a basement level." Stairs. She remembered stairs. Going down them. Down into hell.

"It isn't on the blueprints."

"I know."

"Bad place to get trapped in a burning building," Hollis noted. "The roof could fall in on us. Easily."

Bishop appeared out of the smoke as suddenly as Hollis had, weapon in hand, his face stone, eyes haunted. "We have to hurry."

"Yeah," Hollis replied, "we get that. Burning building. Maniacal killer. Good seriously outnumbered by evil. Bad situation." Her words and tone were flippant, but her gaze on his face was anything but, intent and measuring.

"You forgot potential victim in maniacal killer's hands," her boss said, not even trying to match her tone.

"Never. Dani, did you see the basement, or are you feeling it?"

"Stairs. I saw them." The weight on her shoulders felt like the world, so maybe that was what was pressing her down. Or . . . "And what I feel now ...He's lower. He's underneath us."

"Then we look for stairs."

Dani coughed. She was trying to think, trying to remember. But dreams recalled were such dim, insubstantial things, even vision dreams sometimes, and there was no way for her to be sure she was remembering clearly. She was overwhelmingly conscious of precious time passing and looked at her wrist, at the bulky digital watch that told her it was 2:47 p.m. on Tuesday, October 28.

Odd. She never wore a watch. Why was she wearing one now? And why a watch that looked so . . . alien on her thin wrist?

"Dani?"

She shook off the momentary confusion. "The stairs. Not where you'd expect them to be," she managed finally, coughing again. "They're in a closet or something like that. A small office. Room. Not a hallway. Hallways-" A flash of endless, featureless hallways, brightly lit . . .

"What?"

The image in her mind vanished as quickly as it had come, and Dani dismissed it as unimportant because an absolute certainty had replaced it. "Shit. The basement is divided. By a solid wall. Two big rooms. And accessed from this main level by two different stairways, one at each side of the building, in the back."

"What kind of crazy-ass design is that?" Hollis demanded.

"If we get out of this alive, you can ask the architect." The smell of blood was almost overpowering, and Dani's head was beginning to hurt. Badly. Hallways. No, not hallways, two separate spaces, distinct sides . . . She had never before pushed herself for so long without a break, especially with this level of intensity.

It was Bishop who said, "You don't know which side they're in."

"No. I'm sorry." She felt as if she'd been apologizing to this man since she met him. Hell, she had been.

Hollis was scowling. To Bishop, she said, "Great. That's just great. You're psychically blind, the storm has all my senses scrambled, and we're in a huge burning building without a freakin' map."

"Which is why Dani is here." Those pale sentry eyes were fixed on her face.
Dani felt wholly inadequate. "I-I don't- All I know is that he's down there somewhere."

"And Miranda?"


The roof was falling in.